Gen Con recap and some Dark Age!

Well folks, I recently returned from Gen con, and I gotta say barring some minor travel problems, it was a freakin blast! I don't have a ton of pics from the con to show you here but if you are interested, my groups pictures can be found on the Geek Garage Facebook page .

My overall impression of the myriad of Miniature gaming booths is a mixed one. Some were great and a few were a little on the lacking side.

In my opinion, the Wyrd booth takes the cake as the best overall. Really awesome staff and a nice wide open area to peruse all of their wares. The new plastic sets are to die for, really some of the best new figs I have seen released in a while!
Of course, because of their level of awesome, I jumped into Malifaux 2E with both feet. Look for some terrain and my Viktorias crew to be on the blog in the very near future.

Ninja Division was partnered up with Hawk Wargames in the same booth location, and I must say that was a very powerful combo. So much great stuff is coming out of both of those companies right now. Of course with that amount of coolness, the booth was jam packed the whole weekend. I made sure to snag my Super Dungeon explore con exclusives, and I will be picking up one of the new Drop Zone Commander starters very soon!(most likely PHR)

Cool Mini or not definitely saw some of my Gen Con funds. The new Dark Age stuff was just too sexy to pass up. Its nice to see Dark Age get some much needed attention and watch all the beautiful new sculpts roll out.  This was yet another booth that was absolutely packed the entire time. Those Zombicide fans are bonkers!

Pretty surprisingly, none of my group hit up the Wild West Exodus booth at all. I know I for one had great expectations for this game, but the prices on the figs have already climbed prohibitively high for a family man such as myself. I think that turned off my entire group from making them a high priority.

Of course we cant forget the Warstore booth. Always have to stop and see what they have got on clearance. I was not disappointed and was able to Snag some Mierce miniatures figs at crazy deep discounts. 

Of course there were dozens of other booths there, but these ones stuck in my memory the most.

And now for a few pics of the most recent Dark Age stuff  I have finished. Can ya tell Gen con has my Dark Age love rekindled?

Again, you'll have to excuse my crap pics for now. I'll have a new phone within the next month or so!


First up are some ravages for my Forsaken lists. I know some people don't dig these older sculpts, but they definitely hold a special spot in my heart. That and they are single piece figs! Doesn't get better than that.

Next up are the Buzzblades tthat I have been trying to churn out. I need a grundle of these guys for games, so I'm not trying to be too fancy with them.

On the bench

Lately it seems I have started a lot of projects but really dont have anything finished to show as of yet. So, I thought an "on the bench" post was in order!

It seems with the release of the all new card decks for Dark Age, my interest in the game has been rekindled. I have gotten a few games in and started work on the figs again. I really, really love painting these figures but couldn't get much oomph to do so when the game was not drawing my attention.

Here is what I have been working on.

Now, with all of this Dark Age craziness abound, Wild West Exodus was not to be forgotten.
Just some basecoats and washes on this guy for now. I plan to ramp up on him over the coming days.

Last but definitely not least, is my Yaogat strike force leader for my Morat aggression sectorial army.

I always have one Infinity fig in the works. Only one though, because if I were to try and assembly line paint these tiny, detailed little buggers, my eyes might just melt right out of my skull.

Thanks for taking a look! Let me know what you think or what changes you might add to these!

Dark Age aplenty: Warwind, Lucky and a Buzzblade

I was actually able to get in a game of Dark Age recently, and as usual, playing a game gets me rip roaring to paint up the figs for it.
I had been wanting to paint up the Warwind for quite sometime. Mostly because she is a beast on the battlefield, but also because she is a cool looking sculpt as far as I'm concerned.
All the red pleather was my wife's idea. She thought a "Hooker Ninja" would be pretty sweet. 

Lucky is also pretty rocking on the battlefield, unfortunately, her sculpt is not so awesome.
For the "poster girl" of Samaria, I really thought the sculpt should be a little better. I mean, if you have seen the amazing artwork for her, you'll realize that the ball was somewhat dropped as far as the fig goes.

Ah well, she was still fun to paint nonetheless.
The rip in her stocking was an unintentional but pleasant surprise.
I was applying purple glazes to her leg in layers to suggest nylons and I guess I got a little impatient and applied another wash before the last one was totally dry. Well, part of the previous glaze came off and turned itself into a perfect tear. a little outlining to accentuate the mistake an Voila! a rip.

The last fig is just another Buzzblade of many. I can bust these out fairly quick as long as I keep the details and craziness to a minimum. Only seven more to go now..........

Dark Age: Junker, finished

Well, this one was a 50% WIP Just a day ago but I was having such a good time painting her that I pushed through to the end. Gotta give my buddies props here for the color choices. Had a lot of help with the decisions. Not much else to say about this one but she does put me at the 25 mark for completed figs this year.
At this rate I may hit 100! We will have to see what the summer time says about that though....


Also threw in a couple of the WIPS as I went along finishing her up.
Thanks for looking!

On the Bench

Wow! what a slacker I have been this month, half way through and just putting up my first post. I did actually finish a few figures very recently but forgot to snap pics before they got sent off to the new owners. Ah well, live and learn I guess.

For now, I 'll go ahead and show some of the current WIP's I am actively working on.

Have a few Dark age things in the wroks up first. Really pleased with how the Junker chick is turning out so far. Not so terribly pleased with the Buzzblade yet though.

More pics after the Jump

Medic!!!!!

This was a real quick paint job for me and it shows a bit, but I'm pretty pleased with the result.
Think she was about 2 hours worth of work.
Along with most of the Dark Age female figs, she is super tiny and petite. (Oh my eyes!)

After running her in a few games, I decided she would most likely be in all of my Forsaken lists. 50 points for someone that can heal in a such a brutal game, is a small price to pay!
 So, I thought I had better slap some paint on her before the next game.

Thanks for lookin.

Dark Age: Reaver/Hepzibah

The other day I got off work a few hours earlier than I expected, so I decided to use the time wisely and sling some paint.
I hadn't really planned on working on this fig at all, but watching the Book of Eli while I painted put me in a Post apocalyptic mood I guess.While I usually take weeks or  even months to finish one figure normally, this one was done basically start to finish in about 3 hours! Must be a new record for me.

This fig is extremely tiny, so it was very difficult to snap  a clear picture.
I'm fairly pleased with how she turned out all said and done. If nothing else, she finishes up my Demo force for my forsaken group.
I also included a pic of my Malignos, as I got a little bit more work done on him, and you can tell better where he is headed.

Army painter: Grass tufts

For the longest time, I have been making my own grass tufts using the really long woodland scenics grass, and then just cutting it down to size as I saw fit. Not a bad option all in all, but it isn't a fast or clean one either.

The other day, my local shop got the Army Painter tufts in stock, so I grabbed a few packages to give them a go. I always wanted to try them, but I hate paying shipping for stuff online so I never snagged any till now.

If you have been on the fence about giving these a try, I would say go ahead and make the jump. They are very inexpensive for the amount you get and are about as quick and easy as it gets.
I went ahead and grabbed a variety, so I could put them on all sorts of figs that I already have finished.
I think I'll be grabbing the rest of the range...possibly even the ones with little flowers on them. :)

 Apply with a small dab of superglue to the base, and then press the tuft into the glue spot with tweezers.

Dark Age rumble

Well, Wednesday has turned into our official Dark Age day at the local game shop. I hadnt initially thought to take any pics, but it struck me about mid game that it might be kinda cool.
We had an odd number of players there, so we decided for a 3 person battle. We also decide to go for scenarios, since a 3 person free for all, inevitably sees one person getting crushed between the other two armies.
In Dark age, for those who aren't in the know, you roll for individual random scenarios. So, you basically have your very own agenda throughout the game. Each player places 3 objective markers in the "no mans land" area of the board(center strip), and then your scenario tells you what you have to do with the objective markers. Whether it will be running to a friendly objective to gather supplies and then retreat, or stealing something from an enemy objective,and so on.
You have to try and find a balance between disrupting your opponents conditions, and completing your own.
 I played a St Mark Forsaken force
My objective was a weapons grab. I had to make it to a random enemy objective(determined before game start) steal a weapon, and take it back off the field through an opponents deployment area. Yikes! The kicker is that this weapon is so heavy or cumbersome to the bearer that it slows them down substantially.

Grim, playing Ice caste Dragyri, had an objective to kill half of his opponents force. Since it was a 3 person event we just let him spread that across both armies.

The Wyrm, playing Air caste Dragyri, had to have three troops pick up supplies from his own objective marker and get them back to his  deployment area.

I ran my small Strike squad out early game, since they were one of the few units in my army that could heft the weapon and still be fast enough to move at all.
My Warwind and lone Junker headed over to Grims ice caste force to be a pain in his side. I had a squad of three banes on the table before this, but a lightning strike spell from Wyrms, Yovanka made sure they were exiting the battle early. 

 St mark and his Medic escort stare down Yovanka and her oncoming horde of Guard slaves.
In typical fashion, Marks gun Malfunctioned once, causing himself a wound. My medic had done a little healing, but these two were really inconsequential in the grand scheme of things.

 Grims insane armor rolls made sure that most of his ice caste slaves survived the onslaught of the Warwind and Junker. They did drop a Frostbite trueborn on the way down though. (consolation I guess)

 Grims force prepares to assault the Wyrms ranks with the Deaths Device trueborn warrior. With some more astounding armor saves and  a brutal assault on the elementals, the Wyrms other flank was pretty decimated.

By this point, Grim had more than completed his objective. My Snails pace strike squad was cut down in hand to hand combat by Yovanka herself, dropping their precious cargo to the ground, and the Wyrm was trying to make a mad dash back to his deployment zone. With mine and the wyrms objective not completed after the hour and a half time limit, we called the game in Grims favor.

There were a lot more things going on obviously,  but these were some of the highlights of the battle.

Really was a fun game. I find myself enjoying Dark Age more and more, each time I play.
You guys out there may want to give it a try, you wont regret it.

Assembling the Masses

Finally caught the assembly bug! The Local game store owner asked if I would assemble the Titan for his Skorne starter box, and I thought if I was going to be putting another one of those pains together I might as well make a day of it.
Typically I hate assembling, but occasionally I find the groove and bust a bunch of stuff out all at once. Still have a bit of gap filling to do but my Greenstuff had gotten too hard to continue working with.
The biggest bonus is now I can try out my Epic Baldur Wold lists!

Dark Age: Warhead

In the continuing effort to finish up my demo forces I went ahead and bombed my way through this dude.
I really like painting these bigger scaled mutants from the Skaard faction, they really give lots of room to practice lots of different techniques.

I decided to throw some nasty, bloody spots on this guy for the cool mini or not contest. I dont expect to win, but I can say I at leas entered.

Here's a link if you feel like throwing me a vote ;)   VOTE

And, just for the fun of it, here is a pic of all the Dark Age stuff I've finished thus far (from both of my factions). One big happy family......that may just kill each other.

Dark Age: Banes and Junker complete

Finally found 5 minutes of free time to wrap these guys up. I really enjoyed painting these banes, they are pretty good sculpts for being so old.

The Junker was a little more frustrating to paint, only because she is a much smaller figure than the other Dark Age stuff I've been doing.
I just have to finish off the Reaver/Hepzibah figure and one of my 400 point Demo groups will be complete. She just so happens to be even smaller though, so, I'm not looking forward to that one as much.

Hopefully once i start demoing with fully painted forces it will snag more peoples attention and we can really generate a good following for the game.

WIP. Banes and Junker

Got a good chunk of these figs done at a local paint night, last night. These, plus a Reaver, will round out my Demo force for St. Mark, and then its on to the Skaard. I wanted to go with really neutral tones on these figs to highlight the fact that Mark is really the important model in the army.

I am fairly pleased with how they are turning out so far. The Banes are really large compared to the other figs in the force, which is weird because they are more  of the grunt troopers.

Also, here is a LINK to some pics from our paint night, posted over at the Geek Garage. We had a freakin blast as usual, and it seems our attendance goes up just about every time. Awesome!